“Thank you, Dad,” I said, “that means a lot to me. But there is more I need to talk to you both about.”
I spent a few minutes explaining my point of view, about how they needed to allow me to have my space and not meddle so much. About how I was an adult, and my mistakes were my own to make. How their role as parents was not to prevent those mistakes, but to be there for me after I made them.
A tearful conversation later, and the tacos were in front of us and the tears behind.
“You know,” Mom said as she took a bite of her taco salad, “I just think you should know that after all the time we had to think, that we just want you to be happy. And if you and Tyler are happy, and he treats you well, then we should fully support your relationship. We both wish you would have waited on having a baby until later, but at least you are an adult with a good head on your shoulders.”
“And you aren’t as young as your mother was when we had Nick,” Dad interjected. “That shook me. When your mother pointed that out, it dawned on me. I thought, ‘my God, what am I doing?’ I never would have let her parents talk to her that way. It made me understand where both of you were coming from a lot better.”
We thanked them for their support and finished off the tacos before saying our goodbyes. Tyler had to head into the bar, and it was looking like it might be a long night. As much as I knew he needed to be there, though, I didn’t want to be away from him. As we got into the car, I turned to him and put my hand on his.
“Can I come with you to the bar?” I asked. “I know, it’s loud and dumb and people are drinking and being stupid because tonight is karaoke night, but I just don’t want to be far away from you tonight. I can go and nurse some Shirley Temples and sodas.”
Tenderly, Tyler reached up and brushed my lips with his thumb before pulling me in for a kiss. When he pulled away, he smiled and turned the ignition on the car.
“If you want to be there during karaoke night, that’s on you,” he said. “Maybe you want to grab some earplugs first, though?”
I laughed, and we headed back to the house to get ready.
The bar was hot and hopping by the time we got there. Karaoke night had proven to be extremely popular, and Ava had the bright idea to make it an all-day affair. Meaning the karaoke had begun at noon and went all night. This also meant the staff was split, and an entirely different shift worked the lunch and night hours. We got there at six so Tyler could relieve Ava, and when she saw us coming in, she rushed around the bar to grab me in a hug.
I really liked Ava and found myself excited to have such a close friend in her that was going to be connected with me through family. She ushered me to a booth near the bar, where I could catch Tyler’s attention if I wanted but was out of the way of the rest of the ruckus. It was a booth that was normally taped off, for use by the staff only, but as I sat down, she put in an order for appetizers and brought over two large iced teas.
For a while I poked her brain for tips and information about pregnancy, and she happily talked to me about it. As much as I loved Melissa, and no one could replace her as my best friend, having someone with the experience of Ava, and recent experience at that, meant I could feel a little more prepared for the journey I was about to take.
Ava was open and honest about some of the challenges I was looking at facing and had some tips about how to avoid the worst of it. It was valuable information, and I tried to take as much of it in as possible, but she reiterated over and over that she was always around. I had her phone number programmed into my phone before we even got our first appetizer out, and she said she could always take a call or at least answer a text.
Of course, she would also almost always be here whenever Tyler was working. Which meant if I had something pressing I needed her help with, I could come to her in person and pull her aside. Her ideas of what exactly she would tell her waiting customers should I need to talk to her in an emergency were colorful and extraordinarily filthy. She laughed as I reacted with mock shock, and we toasted our tea together like fancy ladies.
It was also nice just to sit back and watch Tyler work. I had never really done that before, despite being in the bar when he was on the clock. Sitting in the booth meant he wasn’t paying attention to me, aside from the occasional grin and wink, and was letting Matt handle bringing me food or drinks. He was fantastic behind the bar, personable, funny, and fast. Rarely did someone have to ask for a drink; he was always there, ready to top off or cash out before the customer even realized it was what they wanted.
He seemed happier, too. Much more at ease with himself behind the bar than I had seen him before, and I wondered if maybe it was just the new decisions he made regarding his future that helped him be more relaxed and comfortable up there. At any rate, it was nice to watch him be so happy and clearly in an element he was good at.
As the night wore on, and the karaoke continued to devolve from occasionally talented people singing to near-drunken ramblings and sing-alongs, I looked at the clock. It was about time for one of Tyler’s breaks, and sure enough, I looked over at him, and he motioned me to join him outside. I told Ava where I was going, and she snapped off a funny little salute. Mason was working the evening shift, handing the karaoke duties until they hired a DJ for the events, so Ava decided to stick around and enjoy the festivities with me.
I got outside before Tyler could escape from the bar, leaving Matt in charge, and I reached out for him when he got through the door. Standing on my toes, I leaned in for a kiss and pressed it to his lips, staying there, enjoying the taste of him for a few moments.
“I’ve been watching you,” I said.
“Oh, have you?” he said, his voice a low purr that made my spine tingle.
“I have,” I said. “You seem awfully happy out there tonight. It’s amazing the difference in how excited to be there you seem compared to the last time I came in and you looked like death warmed over.”
He laughed, wrapping his arms around me, and we began to sway, dancing to the faint music of someone butchering a classic in the bar.
“Well, you know who did that to me?” he said.
“Me,” I said, smiling. He bopped me on the nose with his fingertip.
“You,” he said. “You are the reason I can be so happy out there. You are the reason I can serve drinks and listen to this god-awful caterwauling all night and not claw my ears off with a chainsaw.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Maybe,” I said, “your real passion isn’t exactly ‘tech work.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it means that your real passion is family,” I said, pulling his flannel shirt closed over his rock-hard stomach. I loved running my fingers across that stomach, either on purpose or on “accident.” “Maybe you just needed to find the perfect person.”
“You.”
“And make your own family,” I finished.
He sighed and pulled me tighter, tight enough that I could feel the bulge beginning in his pants. I had to keep calm, though. There wasn’t enough time to drag him to the car, as much as I wanted to. Plus, cops were always nearby.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss. “I can’t imagine being this happy over anything else besides you and our baby.”
39
Tyler
“So, you want me to pick her up and do what with her?” Nick asked as he sat down the empty glass and I took it away.
“Go have some brother-sister time, I don’t know. You are her brother, is it that weird that you would want to hang out with her?” I asked.
“Considering she spends pretty much every waking minute with you, Melissa, or Ava these days, yeah, kind of,” he said. “Is the kitchen open? I’m starving.”
“Why don’t you take her to lunch. That’s something you could do,” I said, wiping down the now clean glass and putting it on the shelf rather than refilling it and pushing it back across the bar to him.
“Not a bad i
dea, but why tomorrow? I thought you were going to wait?” he asked.
“I thought I was, too, but I just can’t,” I said. “I need her to know just how much she really means to me, and that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don’t want her hanging around the next few months thinking that I might think it’s too hard one day and bolt, you know?”
“I get that,” Nick said. “I do. I just thought you’d want time to plan something elaborate.”
“It will be elaborate, but in the kind of way she won’t expect. If I took her off to some crazy place she would figure it out, right? And doing it at a restaurant over dinner is the least romantic thing in the world because everyone does it. But karaoke? At the bar? She will never see that coming.”
“True,” Nick said. “So, you want me to pick her up and go to lunch or something, and then what?”
“Then you keep checking in with me,” I said. “If we aren’t ready yet, you bring her to a movie or something. Again, you are her brother, you can find a way to keep her occupied so I can throw her a surprise for just a couple of hours, can’t you?”
“Fine,” he said, letting the vowel sound elongate until it was nearly its own word and rolling his eyes dramatically. “If I have to, but we’re even for me punching you now.”
“Not quite. But close,” I said and grinned. Nick laughed and stood up.
“Alright, tomorrow morning I’ll call her, and you’ll come here for the day shift when I go get her,” he said, going over the plan.
“You got it,” I said.
“Good, good. Now can I have some wings or something?”
The next day was a blur until I got to the bar. I was so nervous and jittery I was absolutely sure I gave the secret away before Nick arrived to pick Becca up. He had called her while I was in the shower, and she was excited about the prospect of her brother trying to make amends by taking her to lunch and maybe seeing a movie. The situation with him was still raw, and him reaching out to her to make it better was something she had hoped for.
Nick got there before I had to leave and did an admirable job pretending. He even goaded me about how karaoke day was ahead of me, and how he was rescuing his sister from the destruction of her delicate eardrums. I waved to them as they left and then ran back inside, changing out of the normal work clothes I had and putting on the suit I had prepared for this occasion. It was hanging in the back of the closet, inside the bag with the tux I’d worn at Mason’s wedding.
Then I left to go pick up Mom, while Ava and Mason held down the fort at the bar, closing it up and only inviting select guests in. It was essentially a private party, but the guests that were being brought in were a ruse. We didn’t want her to figure it out when she first walked in. There had to be people at the bar and in the booths. Thankfully, Jordan was in charge of choosing the guests and made sure none of the really terrible singers were going to be there.
When I got to the bar, her parents were already there, hiding in a booth that wasn’t easily seen when a person walks in the door. The kitchen was chock-full of surprise decorations and a ton of cupcakes that were ordered from a local patisserie, each decorated with our initials and the date. We had a singer ready to go to play an eighties song that was close to both of us, and when Nick’s car pulled up, Jordan pulled up the song and they started to sing. I hung out behind a table near the karaoke stage and waited as she walked in. She smiled when she heard the song and followed Nick to the bar, where Ava began talking to them.
A couple of minutes later, and I was sweating as the song wound down. This was it. I could see her parents across from me, but Becca hadn’t seen them yet. Just before I stood up, I pointed to them, and they made their way to the bar. I watched as Becca saw them coming and got the adorably confused look on her face that I enjoyed seeing on her from time to time. Then, Melissa joined her from behind, and it began to dawn on her that something was happening.
At that moment, I stood, walking over to the microphone, and looked out over the bar at her. Our eyes met, and her shocked face was frozen in place. I smiled.
“Life is a series of moments,” I said. “Some planned, some not. Some that happen purely by chance, completely random. Some happen as if by plan, carefully constructed years before and methodically enacted step by step. There are theories that the time as we know it isn’t linear, that it isn’t one straight line. That there are a million universes with a million timelines and a million different ways each scenario could go, and then they branch off and off and off, creating realities of their own.
“But I know this. In every single one of those realities, there exists love, a love defined not by the happenstance, the randomness of life. But love, designed, planned, and constructed for people to experience together, step by step. In every one of each reality that could exist, I know for a fact that I love you, Becca Watson. I love you with every inch of every version of me that could exist in every multiverse, and I know we were meant to be together.
“Every time we bumped into each other, it was fate, pushing us together. Every time life gave us a hard time, it was preparing us. Every time you and I saw each other from across the room, and I felt that tug in my soul, that was fate, screaming your name into my heart.”
I had walked the length of the bar, silently thanking Jordan for insisting on using wireless mics, and was just a few feet away from the stunned and teary Becca. She sat in the stool, surrounded by her family and friends, and in front of them, I knelt to one knee. She gasped, and the crowd around her made a sound of excitement, of anticipation.
“Oh my God,” Becca sputtered. “Oh my God, oh my God.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but for once I was happy to see them. These were tears of joy. Tears of love.
“I don’t want you to forget the experiences you had before. I don’t want you to ignore them, or pretend they never happened. Because without them, you wouldn’t be here. They were hard, and they were terrible, but they were fate, and fate brought you to me when you were ready. Now I want to make sure that you know that you will never hurt like that again. I promise you that I will want you forever and ever. Every morning that I wake up, I will choose you. I have had a crush on you since we were young, Becca, and I will have that crush on you for the rest of my life, even if you give me the highest honor I could ever receive and be my wife. Becca Watson, will you marry me?”
There was only a moment of hushed silence, of held breath as I opened the ring box and held it toward her. Then, without words, she began to nod, her lips spreading a smile bigger than any I had ever seen, and the tears falling into the corners of it. Her mouth moved to speak, but the voice took a long time coming out.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes!” She finally forced out, and a roar erupted around us. I stood and put the ring over her delicate finger as the song started up again, the singer choking his way through it behind tears of happiness. I pulled her in for an embrace, and we kissed, deeply, fully, and then held each other tight before being swarmed by our families and friends.
Mom kissed her on both cheeks and congratulated us before going behind the bar and helping bring out the cupcakes. Jordan had gone out of his way to create a fizzy champagne-like nonalcoholic drink for her and filled her glass with it. We toasted and began to celebrate while the music continued.
The party continued well into the night with food and drinks being passed along, and various cocktails designed just for the two of us being passed out. Some were alcoholic, but most weren’t as a nod to Becca and her current situation. I wanted to make sure that any alcoholic drink on the menu for the night had a counterpart that wasn’t, and Matt and Jordan had gone to great lengths to make it happen in such a short time. Even the food was friendly to her stomach, and Melissa and Ava had built a sort of throne for her to sit on that they brought out after I popped the question, sitting it in the center of the room for the two of us to sit in and watch the festivities.
Mason was our personal waiter for the night, and I found out later that he had
video called Tom and Amanda right as I got to the stage. Tom was absolutely demanding that we open a hundred-year-old bottle of whiskey with him when he came home next time and have a celebration together. Nick filtered in and out, seeming to enjoy himself thoroughly and high fiving me on every pass.
“I was in on this from the beginning,” he said to Becca as he brought her a second cupcake.
“Lunch and a movie, huh?” she asked as she took a bite. “These are amazing.”
“Well, the lunch and movie were Tyler’s idea, but I didn’t spill the beans,” Nick said. “So now me and Tyler are even, right?”
“Right,” I said, getting a pumping fist from Nick.
“Boom,” he said. “Now you two enjoy yourselves, I have a song to sing.”
“You’re going to sing?” I asked, laughing.
“Damn right I am,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to belt out anything from a musical since high school.”
“Oh God,” I said.
“This is crazy,” she said as he took to the stage and began singing.
“Well, I wanted to skip right to the engagement party if at all possible, so I had this all set up,” I said.
“But what if I said no?” she asked, the corner of her mouth sliding up into a smile.
“Then I would have to eat a lot of very sad cupcakes on my own,” I laughed. She curled into my arm, and we listened as Mom and Melissa belted out a tune together at the karaoke mic.
Epilogue
Becca
It had been a long day, but heading home was worth all the stress. Working part-time at the internship meant hours away from home and no check to show for it, but the experience was invaluable. It was also something I could put on a resume, and my boss was already talking about how she couldn’t imagine going back to working without me there. It was stressful work, but it was what I enjoyed, so it made it all worth it.
His Best Friend's Sister: A Secret Baby Romance Page 21